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and by this - i'm talking regular use, not an overdose, and i'm talking of direct physical damage (such as liver failure or a heart attack) rather than, say, jumping off an electricity pylon whilst on hallucogenics (or HIV caused by sharing dirty needles or something like that)

I mean - could someone continue to inject heroin all their life, avoid overdosing and live til 80?

all put pressure on your cardiovascular system. You're more likely to have high blood pressure, blocked arteries, cancers if you take these things. I don't imagine your kidneys and liver willl thanks you for having to prcess the toxins for these, either. the same could surely be said for a lot of prescription medication.

You'd be waiting literally hours for any effect of the drug to appear. And that's assuming you (as a junkie, perhaps a bit strung out) are able to avoid piercing the eyeball.

I think the eyeball thing is probably an urban myth, possibly taken as a reality by idiots. You could, feasibly, if really careful, inject into the tear duct, but I don't buy the inject into the eyeball thing at all...

they'll exasterbate things you're already prone to, weed - lung cancer etc. plenty of legal, medical drugs are much more lethal if you just carry on using them, people with very high blood pressure take warfarin for example, and that is a rat poison.

I'm not a doctor, but I will say this - don't take any drugs over an exended period, they make you boring.

If, for illegals, you have a 'clean' or reputable source of a known quality of product, use in moderation and you aren't an arsehole, you can easily continue to use until you cark it in your later years.

Long term effects of nicotine and alcohol, as well as long term effects of many additives in food, certain vitamin supplements and most over the counter medicines, are more harmful than the known long term effects of many illegal drugs (as far as current research studies show).

There are few medicines or legally available narcotics which are recommended for continuous and/or prolonged use.

Do regular moderate exercise. Avoid eating an excess of saturated fats. Make sure you eat as much fresh fruit and veg as you can and have a balanced diet. Once you get to the 'dangerzone' (usually your 40s) you might be told to take an aspirin a day to thin your blood. There's a lot you can do to reduce genetic risk of bad things happening. It's just quite hard work and a bit boring, I guess.

don't be worrying too much about what damage you've already done. If you can quit before you're 30, you'll escape almost unhurt by it, because your body can still recover really well. It's smoking in your 30s and over that properly fucks you up. <pops out for a fag, aged 35>

roughly, men who give up before 30 have no reduced life expectancy. It goes mentally bad after that, to the point that if you're still smnoking at 60, there's no point fgiving up cos you'er on borrowed time anyway.

So yeah- stop before you're 30. I need to give up. I'll do it with you if you need a buddy.

As others have said, it's not much good for your cardiovascular or renal systems and will take an accumulative affect on you, particularly once you're out of your twenties. In that sense, it's no different to many other vices or guilty pleasures.

Of course, the fact that drugs are not monitored, moderated or sanitised in the same way as those other vices are means that each individual instance of drug-taking poses a greater risk to your immediate health than the same for a pint or a giant cake.